Weekly Reading Recap (Week of February 13, 2023)
Many people in the United States are in the middle of a long weekend, while others are working to meet the needs of those of us having a break. Who gets to relax? Who has to work? And who benefits the most from our current economic reality—which really is none of us and only the richest and most powerful. These questions have been on my mind a lot lately.
Part of the reason is because I’ve been devouring two books by economist and social thinker Mariana Mazzucato about our broken economy. This is coming off of just finishing When McKinsey Comes to Town (all Bookshop links are affiliate links) by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe about the truly epic failures of McKinsey and Company.
I don’t have any kind of answer to these questions, but I find a lot of comfort in knowing that there might be answers. Reading books like Mazzucato’s helps. Now, on to everything else I’ve been reading this week.
On repeat
But first, let’s start with a song that I’ve had on repeat lately: “Hollywood Forever Cemetery” by Allison Ponthier.
Finished This Week
Elemental by Whitney Hill
I’ve got a full review of Elemental right here on THOUF. Not much more to say except that I loved this one—the Shadows of Otherside series has already rocketed to the top of my UF reading list (I’ll be tackling book two, Eldritch Sparks, in March).
If you like The Hollows and are drawn into a bit more of the procedural aspects of UF, this is a great one to check out.
Queen and Conqueror by Isabelle Olmo
Wow.
I received this book from Michael LaBorn’s Indie Highlight Subscription Box, and I’ve got an unpacking video on my TikTok so you can see my delight when I get to the giant map that was included. Yes, this is a big, epic, feminist, high fantasy very much in dialogue with Game of Thrones. If that sounds remotely interesting to you, I highly recommend this.
I was just astonished by what Isabelle was able to accomplish here. The story is compulsively readable and has interesting and likable characters to boot. I think there is more to be done with the world-building, and thankfully she’s already putting out a sequel which I expect will do just that. You can pre-order on her website, and I recommend that you do.
The Value of Everything by Mariana Mazzucato
I just published a TikTok review of The Value of Everything, which I re-read while gearing up for The Big Con, co-authored by Mazzucato. This is a fascinating, challenging book all about how the concept of value works (and doesn’t work) in our society and our economy. The thesis is that we don’t even think about it anymore because a particular strain of thinking—marginal utility theory—has essentially won out over everything else. And that theory posits this: the value of something is its price, and if something doesn’t have a price, it doesn’t have a value.
Doesn't that sound… wrong? Can’t you think of any number of things that don’t have a price (parenting, public education, roads and bridges and putting a human being on the moon) that obviously have a value? Perhaps even enormous value?
If any of that sounds intriguing, I recommend this book. I will say, as I elaborate on in my TikTok, this isn’t exactly for a lay audience and Mazzucato assumes some understanding and familiarity with economic concepts. She does dedicate a significant portion of the book to an overview of economic history and theory that is not written in overly dense language, but once she explains something she moves on. So if thinking about how financial services fees contribute to gross domestic product (GDP) while public education doesn’t sounds daunting, you may want to skip.
I haven’t watched it fully, but Mazzucato does have a YouTube video that condenses her arguments down—although it is still an hour. May be worth a watch. If anyone checks it out and has feedback (positive or negative) let me know.
Still Reading
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
One of the reasons I think “Hollywood Forever Cemetery” has been on a loop in my head is because I’m reading Siren Queen. I’m reading this as part of Alise’s (SheReadyToRead on TikTok) Diversify Your Reading Book Club—which you must join if you haven’t already. I’m through the first “Act” and just started on Act II and I am in love with this book, the prose, the storytelling, everything.
The basic gist is a daughter of Chinese immigrants, Luli Wei (not her given name), is trying to make it in pre-Code Hollywood. But the setting is not quite the Hollywood you know. Vo is definitely trading on a kind of magical realism here, where Luli’s family are familiar with actual potions and remedies that can keep people alive and youthful for centuries. The studios are guarded by animated metal wolves. An executive peels off a layer of skin for every layer of clothing he asks a young starlet to remove. You get the idea.
I know that this is a divisive book, and I already have some theories about why based on what I’ve seen on Goodreads. I’ll save those for Alise’s Discord and an eventual full review, though.
The Big Con by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington (pre-order today, available March 7, 2023)
I’m about exactly halfway through The Big Con (which is one of the very first physical ARCs I’ve received, thank you to Penguin Random House and to Amy on TikTok for the ARC request template). It’s a fantastic read about the history, evolution, and costs of management consulting on society. I know, that may not necessarily sound like a riveting topic, especially if you’re mostly here for the urban fantasy. But it’s an important topic and a well written and forcefully argued book.
If you never pick it up, the basic idea is this: governments and companies have increasingly let their own internal capability to do stuff atrophy in favor of outsourcing to consultants. This especially plagues government where political conservatives push to defund various public services, they become weaker and people get upset, and then government has to turn to consultants to deliver those services. For business, it’s often more about cost-cutting than this unique phenomenon in government, but the outcomes are the same. And across both the public and private sectors, there is so often a desire to get answers from someone who seems to know (and have someone to blame if something goes wrong).
This has lead to a proliferation of management and services consultants performing so many tasks that used to be core to government and business. And it’s not hard to see why this would be a bad thing.
I’m hoping to wrap this up in the next few days and will definitely have a full review on my TikTok about it.
Thanks so much for reading. Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested and if you’d like to get in touch with me about anything, my email is in my Linktree.
Catch you again next week,
Ck